Şiir 4
Nemean 4 For Timasarchus of Aegina Boys’ Wrestling ? 473 B. C. E.
When toils have been resolved, festivity is the best physician; and songs, the skillful daughters of the Muses, soothe with their touch. And warm water does not wet the limbs so gently
as praise that accompanies the lyre. Speech lives longer than deeds; whatever words the tongue, with the favor of the Graces, draws from the deep mind.
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May it be mine to set forth such speech, in honor of Zeus the son of Cronus, and Nemea,
and Timasarchus’ wrestling, as a prelude to my song. And may it be welcomed by the home of the Aeacids, with its fine towers, that light which shines for all, with justice that defends the stranger. And if your father Timocritus had still been warmed by the strength of the sun, playing embroidered notes on the cithara
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and bending to this strain, he would have often celebrated his triumphant son,
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because he had sent back from the contest at Cleonae a chain of garlands, and from splendid, illustrious Athens; and because in seven-gated Thebes,
beside Amphitryon’s splendid tomb, the Cadmeans gladly crowned him with flowers, for the sake of Aegina. For he looked on Reading with Snell and MSS κατέδρακεν for κατέδραμεν. a hospitable city, when he came as a friend to friends, to the prosperous court of Heracles,
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with whom once powerful Telamon destroyed Troy and the Meropes and the great and terrible warrior Alcyoneus, but not before that giant had laid low, by hurling a rock, twelve chariots and twice twelve horse-taming heroes who were riding in them.
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A man who did not understand this proverb would appear to be inexperienced in battle: since “it is likely that the doer will also suffer.”
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The laws of song and the hurrying hours prevent me from telling a long story,
